This invitation, which has been issued every year for three decades, received 185 votes in favor, two against and two abstentions, from Brazil and Ukraine, this Thursday (November 3, 2022).
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, presenting the text, denounced the so-called blockade as a “deliberate act of economic war.”
Introduced in 1962, at the height of the Cold War, by then US President John F. Kennedy, the embargo, which was progressively tightened to quell the communist regime, “has the effect of a ‘permanent pandemic, a permanent hurricane,'” the Cuban foreign minister lamented. jobs in the UN gallery.
Likewise, “it remains the central element that defines the policy of the United States towards Cuba”, he assured.
According to Bruno Rodríguez, in the first 14 months of the Democratic administration of Joe Biden, the “damage” caused by the blockade increased to 6.364 million dollars, and in six decades to 154.217 million.
“We do not attribute all the difficulties our country faces today to the blockade, but anyone who denies its very serious effects and does not acknowledge that it is the main cause of poverty, shortages and suffering of Cuban families would be untruthful,” he said. convinced, after warning that it “creates conditions that encourage illegal immigration”.
a moral victory
Over the last two days, delegations from southern countries have been behind the rostrum of the General Assembly to denounce the embargo – “unjust”, “illegal”, “unacceptable”, “criminal”, “inhuman”, “disproportionate” – a blockade that has been progressively tightened.
Although this huge support is a moral victory for the island’s government, the sponsor of the resolution, in practice it is not expected that anything will change, as has happened since 1992 with the adoption of the previous 29 resolutions of the same tone.
VT (afp, efe)